Kirk Lee Hammett was born on November 18,1962 and is an American musician who has been the lead guitarist of heavy metal band Metallica since 1983.
56 Facts About Kirk Hammett
2.
In 2003, Hammett was ranked 11th on Rolling Stone's list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
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In 2009, Kirk Hammett was ranked number 15 in Joel McIver's book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists.
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Kirk Hammett was born on November 18,1962, in San Francisco, California, and raised in the town of El Sobrante.
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Kirk Hammett's mother is of Filipino descent and his father was of English, German, Scottish and Irish ancestry.
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Kirk Hammett attended De Anza High School in Richmond, California.
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Kirk Hammett has a well-known passion for horror movies that stretches back to the late sixties.
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Kirk Hammett began showing an interest in music after listening to his brother Rick's extensive record collection.
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Kirk Hammett began selling his horror magazines to buy music records, which led him to properly picking up the guitar at the age of fifteen.
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Kirk Hammett's first guitar was a "wholly unglamorous" Montgomery Ward catalog special, which was accompanied by a shoebox for an amp.
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Kirk Hammett named Exodus after the Leon Uris novel of the same name, and played on the band's 1982 Demo and its successor Die By His Hand from 1983.
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Kirk Hammett has written a number of riffs for Metallica since Ride the Lightning.
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The bridge for "Creeping Death" was originally an Exodus riff that Kirk Hammett took with him to Metallica.
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Once the draw was completed, Burton looked at Kirk Hammett and said "I want your bunk", to which Kirk Hammett complied, saying that he might be able to sleep better in the front of the bus anyway.
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Kirk Hammett has stated in an interview that he once thought that it easily could have been him who was killed instead, since Burton was sleeping in what was considered to be Kirk Hammett's bunk.
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Kirk Hammett went through a "blues period" around this time - which had some influence on Metallica's Load and Reload albums.
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Kirk Hammett began listening to a lot of jazz music.
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Kirk Hammett described this period of his life as "great education", because he was able to discover where all of his own rock influences had gotten their own guitar licks.
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However, even though jazz music had a profound effect on his improvisation skills and solos, Kirk Hammett felt that he was delving too deep into the genre.
20.
Since Death Magnetic, Kirk Hammett has gone back to being "primarily" a metal guitarist, but some of his influences of jazz and blues music still remain.
21.
Kirk Hammett wanted to have guitar solos on Metallica's 2003 album, St Anger, but drummer Lars Ulrich and producer Bob Rock thought that the solos did not sound right in the songs.
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Kirk Hammett later admitted himself, "We tried to put in solos but they sounded like an afterthought so we left them out".
23.
In 2009, Kirk Hammett provided the foreword to British author Joel McIver's book To Live Is to Die: The Life and Death of Metallica's Cliff Burton.
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In 2016, Kirk Hammett provided the foreword to author Greg Prato's book German Metal Machine: Scorpions in the '70s.
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Kirk Hammett appeared on the Kichigai EP by punk band Septic Death.
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Kirk Hammett played additional lead guitar on the title track.
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Kirk Hammett can be seen in the background in Primus' "John the Fisherman" video fishing off of Les Claypool's boat.
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Kirk Hammett has been friends with Primus bassist and lead vocalist Les Claypool since childhood.
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Kirk Hammett played guitar on the track "Satan" with Orbital for the Spawn: The Album soundtrack released in July 1997.
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Kirk Hammett plays a guitar solo on Pansy Division's song "Headbanger" which appears on the EP For Those About to Suck Cock.
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In 2005, Kirk Hammett was featured playing the guitar roles on the Carlos Santana track "Trinity" alongside steel-pedal guitarist Robert Randolph.
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Santana personally asked Kirk Hammett to contribute to his then-upcoming album All That I Am.
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Kirk Hammett previously worked with Santana in 2001 at a live show benefit in San Francisco.
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In 2006, Kirk Hammett voiced himself on The Simpsons.
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Kirk Hammett provided various voices on the Adult Swim show Metalocalypse, including a two fingered fan, The Queen of Denmark, and a Finnish barkeep.
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Kirk Hammett appeared as a guest in an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast titled "Jacksonville", alongside fellow Metallica member James Hetfield.
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Kirk Hammett appeared as a guest guitarist on K'Naan's 2006 song "If Rap Gets Jealous" off of the Troubadour album.
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Kirk Hammett is one of the main characters in Guitar Hero: Metallica, along with the rest of the current line-up of Metallica.
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In 2011, Kirk Hammett appeared in an episode of Jon Benjamin Has a Van as an actor and guitarist.
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Kirk Hammett has appeared as himself, representing the character Kevin's conscience, in the 2022 American teen comedy-drama Metal Lords.
41.
In May 2023, Kirk Hammett performed at the Jeff Beck tribute concerts held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, sharing the stage with Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Billy Gibbons and Johnny Depp among others.
42.
Kirk Hammett has said that the book is "basically" all of the horror memorabilia he has managed to amass over the last 30 years.
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Kirk Hammett was inspired to create his own horror convention after experiencing the enjoyment of making his "crypt" at the Orion Music + More festival.
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Kirk Hammett joined Exodus and Death Angel on-stage for their encores.
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Kirk Hammett has been married to his second wife Lani since 1998.
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At one point in his life, Kirk Hammett spent a "lot of money" on drugs.
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Kirk Hammett has said that he used drugs because he thought they would be fun.
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Kirk Hammett eventually pulled out of the addiction because cocaine made him feel depressed, but relapsed during the Load era.
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One of the reasons Kirk Hammett said he spent a lot of money on comic books is because he finds them to be a more enjoyable and healthier alternative to drugs.
50.
Kirk Hammett smoked heroin a few times, but "didn't like it".
51.
Kirk Hammett is known for consistently taping sections of his right hand in order to protect his skin from abrasions from his use of palm muting and fast picking techniques over lengthy tour cycles.
52.
In 2014, Kirk Hammett purchased the 1959 Les Paul formerly used by Gary Moore and Peter Green; using it on tour as of 2015 when playing a cover of Thin Lizzy's version of "Whiskey in the Jar".
53.
Kirk Hammett currently uses two rackmounted Dual Rectifier 2-channel heads in tandem with his Randalls.
54.
Kirk Hammett is currently using a prototype of the amplifier that he used for the Big 4 show at Yankee Stadium and for all of the shows in India and Asia, and was recently sent a second prototype.
55.
In 2008, Jim Dunlop started working in partnership with Kirk Hammett to create a signature Wah-wah pedal, the KH95.
56.
Kirk Hammett said that the Ibanez Tube Screamer has been an essential part of his sound since he was a teenager, but it was not versatile enough, which started him searching for a better pedal.